Shards of Faith
by Darth Lawyer
Summary: "Like the Republic, her husband has become something she cannot support." Why did Padmé give up on life after giving birth to Luke and Leia? She still had reasons to live: her children, and even Anakin if she really thought there was still good in him. But they weren't enough.


_"She was very beautiful. Kind, but sad." _– Leia's Force impression of her mother just before her death (_Return of the Jedi_)

**_Shards of Faith_**

One look at Obi-Wan's face told her he hadn't done it. Deep within her heart she had known he would not be able to kill the man he had loved like a brother. It was a weakness they shared: they could not betray those they cared about, even after those they cared about had betrayed them.

He was holding her hand. She could see her sorrow mirrored in his eyes.

He had witnessed the destruction of the Order that had been his entire life. But he still had the Force. He remained a Jedi, even if he was the last Jedi. Unlike her, he still had an identity and something to believe in. Something to live for, to fight for.

She had never _had_ an identity outside of duty – to her people, to the Republic, to her husband.

Now she had no more causes to defend, no more ideals to honor. The illusion had shattered, revealing the flaws of the institutions to which she had dedicated her life. She had watched the members of the democratic Senate, who had all sworn to safeguard the Republic's Constitution and founding principles, applaud the death of liberty and the enslavement of the people whose interests they had been elected to represent. In that terrible moment, she had been forced to accept that democracy could be as defective a system as dictatorship; they were sides of the same coin, easily flipped.

She had seen that war was an evil, yet sometimes so was peace. Perhaps she had been wrong to espouse peace at all cost, for peace without liberty was nothing less than tyranny. Yet, having seen the horrors of war, how could she have done differently?

It had been almost easy to let her anger overcome her aversion to war and violence when the enemy had been the Trade Federation and its inhuman greedy allies. But Anakin, a Sith, was her husband, the Empire had been the Republic she had served, and the Emperor had been her mentor and friend. To fight against all she had fought _for_ was more than she could do.

What Obi-Wan had told her...

She wished she had died not knowing. She wished she had died on Geonosis, or on Cato Neimoidia, or on another of her perilous missions during the war, when she had believed there had been a cause to die for.

Bail Organa and Master Yoda were watching her from behind the glass. Did Bail still hope she would help the rebellion he was planning? Had he forgotten who she was?

Anakin's choice to side with the Chancellor against the Jedi hadn't truly surprised her. Palpatine had been his friend and mentor for several years – as he had been _hers_ for more than a decade.

She had whispered to Bail, in her Senate pod surrounded by thunderous applause, to continue doing _those things_. Things she could not do, could not even know about. She had warned him not to tell her, not to trust her. Because she did not trust herself. How could she when she knew the role she had played in the murder of liberty?

To Bail, she knew, it was clear matter of right and wrong. He had already been planning a resistance while she had sat numbly next to him, not knowing what to think. (She still didn't know.)

She had come after Anakin to Mustafar, still believing in one last ideal: love. She had been prepared to leave politics behind. _If I can live in peace on Naboo with my husband and my child_, she had thought, _it will be enough_. Love had been the only thing she'd had left – before her husband had attacked her in murderous rage.

She still loved the man he had been, but she did not know the monster he had become. Like the Republic, he had changed into something she could not follow, and she did not have the strength to wait for him to change back.

_I'm doing it for you, to protect you_, he had said. Was it her fault? Had she led him down this dark path? Loving her had damned him. If he had never met her... If she hadn't allowed him to give in to his feelings for her...

_If I am gone, he will have no reason to add to the blood on his hands, to further blacken his soul. If I am gone, he will not do what he plans to do._

"They need you," Obi-Wan was saying, clutching her hand, urging her to hold on for the twins' sake. He saw hope in her children who could become Jedi. Bail hadn't given up either; his faith in democracy remained strong. But she could no longer see the light of hope. All she felt was sadness.

Obi-Wan was wrong. The children did not need her. They would be better off without her. Maybe then they would do what she could not.

She was a curse upon that which she cared about. Her love had turned Anakin into a monster. Her actions had helped turn the Republic into a dictatorship. When they had elected her to be their Queen, the Naboo had called her the precursor of a new era. And so she had been: in her blind passion for imperfect ideals, she had brought an era of evil to the galaxy.

She and Obi-Wan might have been reflections of each other in their grief for the Republic and for Anakin. But the mirror was warped. He still had a reason to live. She only had reasons to die.

_end_

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_Disclaimer: I don't own the _Star Wars_ franchise. This is a work of fan fiction. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended._


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